‘You can’t become CEO in America if you aren’t Indian’, quips US envoy

US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti heaped praise on Indian IT and other professionals, aspirants landing dream jobs in top US companies.

He said that today there is a situation wherein one in 10 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies now is an Indian immigrant who studied in the US.

“The old joke was you could not become a CEO in the US if you are Indian, now the joke is you cannot become a CEO in America if you are not Indian, whether it is Google, Microsoft or Starbucks, people have come and made a big difference,” he joked.

Invariably, the situation that Eric Garcetti talked about finds ground in the large number of aspirants in different fields and students pursuing all kinds of higher studies at American universities.

In 2023 alone, a record 1.4 million US visas were provided to Indian nationals overall.

Just a day before, Eric Garcetti said that the number is ‘going up every year, upon being asked if he expected a further rise in the number of visa applications in 2024.

“American universities are such extraordinary places to come to, wonderful communities, great research, wonderful faculty. I think that will continue to be a driver for a young population, a growing population, and the biggest population in the world. It is also a friend of the United States. These things together. I don’t see the number of students going backwards in our lifetime,” he was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Garcetti also shared that President Joe Biden instructed him to cut down the wait time for American visas in India.

This is the first time a US president has given such an instruction to an ambassador in any country, the envoy said. The wait time in India for a US visa is 250 days.

With inputs from PTI